Council expects 'firestorm’ over Trojan Horse schools plot

Birmingham City Council bosses reveal their fears over the impending
publication of official reports into the alleged Trojan Horse plot

Birmingham city council expects a “bloody firestorm” and a “knockout blow” when official inspection reports on the alleged hardline-Muslim “Trojan Horse” plot in the city’s schools are published next month.

In a secret meeting last week with heads of the schools affected, Mark Rogers, the council’s chief executive, launched personal attacks on both Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, and Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools.

He sought to “challenge” the basis of the inspections and said the council was contemplating involving its lawyers.

He also advised the heads that teaching anti-extremism in schools would “play to” The Telegraph, Sir Michael and Mr Gove.

Mr Rogers, who has been criticised for downplaying the plot, told the heads that he had had “quite a torrid time” with Sir Michael, the head of Ofsted, whose letters he described as “curt and unhelpful”.

He said he was “slightly irritated” that Sir Michael was “only prepared to engage [with the council] on his terms” and accused the chief inspector of “flip[ping] the telescope round” to look at the problem “through the radicalisation and extremism lens”.

He also attacked Mr Gove, saying: “We don’t know exactly what Michael Gove will say or do [in response to the reports], but I don’t expect it to be moderate and considered.”

He blamed the Education Secretary, a former journalist, for leaks to The Telegraph, saying: “Never forget who his wife works for [in fact, the Daily Mail], never forget who he used to work for [in fact, The Times] and what his trade was.”

Mr Rogers and a colleague hinted that Mr Gove might even take away the running of schools in the city from the council, in what would be a rare and humiliating, though not unprecedented, move.

Ofsted has carried out snap inspections at 21 schools in Birmingham amid mounting evidence that hardline Muslims have taken control of governing bodies and hounded or pushed out secular headteachers.

In a series of disclosures over the past nine weeks, The Telegraph has revealed the existence of a group called “Educational Activists” which works, in the words of its leader — a deputy head at one of the 21 — to “Islamise” schools in Birmingham.

The newspaper also disclosed an official report which found that three of the schools, Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen, had restricted subjects such as biology to comply with conservative Islamic teachings, invited extremist preachers to speak to students, and discriminated against girls and non-Muslim pupils.

At least six of the 21 are expected to be placed in special measures, with their leaders and governors removed. Another of the 21, Adderley, has officially confirmed that its head, a moderate Muslim, and others have been subjected to “malicious and targeted campaigns to remove them”.

The headteachers’ union has said that it is helping 30 of its members at 12 schools in the city.

At the meeting, held on Wednesday at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Peter Hay, the council’s director of children’s services, spoke of his “disappointment” about previous leaks to The Telegraph and demanded strict secrecy from the participants.

“This is more sensitive [than previous meetings]. This isn’t something we’d put into the public domain,” said Mr Hay.

“You know our [public] position, it is not to comment on anything, even confirming that we’re Birmingham City Council.” However, a recording of the meeting has been obtained by The Telegraph.

Mr Rogers said that as well as the reports on each of the 21 schools, Ofsted was preparing an “overview report” which would have “serious implications for all of us, the city council as well as schools”. This, more than the need to gather further evidence, was why publication of the reports had been delayed until next month, he said.

He said the overview report “is hardly going to be limp and lame”. It would, he said, trigger “some kind of bloody firestorm” and “may well lead to significant structural proposals” for the city council. Birmingham is already expected to be heavily criticised by Ofsted later this month in another report into a separate scandal involving its child protection service.

Mr Hay told the heads: “We’re probably being hit with both ends of the telescope, and the magnifying glass is being used to fry us as well ... we’ll probably have had one knockout blow and we’ll be just about back off our knees for the next one.”

Mr Hay said the city was “taking a bit of a pounding” and added: “Sir Michael called us a disgrace of a local authority last autumn. He won’t have seen much to change his mind since then .. and now he’s got this Trojan Horse stuff in this disgrace of a local authority. We already have a [government-appointed] commissioner ... so [that] could be ratcheted up.”

The commissioner, Peter Clarke, was appointed by Mr Gove last month to look into the wider lessons from the Trojan Horse affair amid deep concern in Whitehall that the council was ignoring repeated complaints from parents and teachers. Only a month ago, Mr Rogers insisted there was no plot, merely “new communities” raising “legitimate questions and challenges” to the “liberal education system”.

The Labour council leader, Sir Albert Bore, dismissed the allegations as “defamatory”.

At the meeting last week, Mr Rogers suggested he was disappointed with the choice of Mr Clarke, a former counter-terrorism commander. “We’ve been disappointed that we didn’t get a joint appointment [with the council], because it might have brought somebody different, with a different reputation preceding them,” he said.

The council officials conceded at the meeting that there were “very significant” issues in some schools but Mr Rogers told the heads: “I’m concerned ... very much what [Sir Michael’s] personal focus might be, is looking at this through the radicalisation and extremism lens, much more so than looking at it through the lens of where Trojan Horse starts, which is whether there’s undue influence in the ethos, curriculum and practices of schools in relation to Islam.”

Mr Rogers added: “When [Sir Michael] sends in his inspectors to look at yours and other schools … I think it’s important for me to properly challenge him and say, why is it that a good part of the conversation he has with me was focused on the Prevent [counter-extremism] agenda.”

Mr Hay said there was “no evidence” of any extremism problem in schools.

Several head teachers at the meeting asked if they should run Prevent training for their pupils, as many schools already do, but Mr Rogers said: “We just need to be mindful that even if it’s completely appropriate to do these things, which I’m sure it’s going to be, that that will play to The Telegraph, to the Secretary of State and to Michael Wilshaw.”

The council has now frozen the appointment of new governors and set up its own inquiry.

Mr Hay also hinted that the council was contemplating legal action. “We will be watching very carefully the [overview report],” he said. “That may have to include whether we bring our lawyers alongside that.”

Staff, former staff and governors at the schools affected have repeatedly told The Telegraph that they complained to the council but were ignored.

There are close links between the council and Tahir Alam, the man accused of masterminding the plot.

He is employed by the authority to train governors and is co-director of a company, Bordesley Birmingham Trust Ltd, with Les Lawrence, until 2012 the council’s cabinet member for schools. Mr Alam denies any involvement in the plot and says it is a fabrication.